Becoming a 'Pineapple Person' with Annie Meehan

Have you ever met someone who instantly brightened your day? That's the powerful impact Annie Meehan and her "pineapple people" philosophy aim to have on the world. In our heartwarming conversation, Annie shares her vision of a global movement built on standing tall with confidence, cherishing our self-worth like a kingly crown, and nurturing the sweetness of our inner character. Her transformative journey, encapsulated in her book "The Pineapple Principle," reveals how these simple yet profound principles can conquer loneliness and reinforce our sense of value. As we chat, Annie’s infectious enthusiasm for creating meaningful connections in our often-disconnected world shines through, encouraging each of us to adopt the pineapple metaphor in our daily lives.

Join us for this episode, and let the sweet, crowned wisdom of Annie Meehan inspire you to become a 'pineapple person' in your own life, creating ripples of positivity wherever you go.

Visit us at jenniferannjohnson.com and learn how Jennifer can help you build the life you dream of with her online academy, blog, one-on-one coaching, and a variety of other resources!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:37

Today we're welcoming back into the studio Annie Meehan. Annie is a dynamic speaker. She's an author of several books Now I believe it's eight correct, correct, eight books. She's an entrepreneur. She's weathered challenges in the boardroom and in business and she credits the storms for the unshakable optimism, drive and resiliency that she employs as a speaker, and I am so honored to have you back.

Speaker 2: 1:01

I'm so excited to be here.

Speaker 1: 1:03

Thanks for having me, absolutely. So we're talking about an interesting. I have no idea where we're going with this because I have no idea what this is, what the heck are pineapple people?

Speaker 2: 1:15

It's my vision to have a million pineapple people all over the world. People commit I'm going to be a pineapple person. It's like Pair-It-Heads. It's not like Pair-It-Heads, it's literally in my mind. Jennifer, what can change the world without politics, without religion, without 72 steps to being a better human being? It's three keys on how to be a pineapple person. And what happened was somebody called me a pineapple and then I read the poem on how to be a pineapple and I said how do I take the poem and turn it into a principle that could be life changing?

Speaker 1: 1:45

Wow, so there is a thing a poem about pineapple.

Speaker 2: 1:50

Yes, so you don't know it. Huh. So it goes like this You're going to see it everywhere. Now, jennifer, after I tell you people like, oh my gosh, now I see it everywhere, right?

Speaker 1: 1:57

So it's a term that's called rectangular something.

Speaker 2: 2:01

Yes, yeah. So it says be a pineapple, stand up straight, wear a crown and be sweet on the inside. Be a pineapple. So that's the poem, and it's very sweet and cute. But when I speak, I'm speaking from a place of depth and wisdom to inspire people to healing and a wholeness. And so I thought what the heck does this poem have to teach us? Stand up straight, wear a crown, be sweet on the inside. That's cute. But then I realized, jennifer, we live in a world like this. Hey, jennifer, can I just get you in a minute? I just have one more text.

Speaker 2: 2:32

We live in a world of looking down, and whether I'm working with individuals, coaching at an entry level or in an executive or ownership level, the number one challenge for most people that I work with is loneliness. They feel disconnected. So I said what if we stand up straight? We literally look people in the eye. So when we're standing, we're seeing. We're not distracted by our phone or someone behind you. So if we stand up straight, we see people. And so what I'm writing about that became a book the pineapple principle.

Speaker 2: 3:00

What I'm writing about is in a world where people feel lonely. Most of us are so plugged in with headphones or a phone that we have lost connection, whether that's in our home, in our office or just on the street just a friendly hello, making friends or dating then the wear the crown. So I like to say that when I get up every morning, what I want to do, jennifer, is lay in bed, eat five donuts and watch crappy TV. And then I remember wait a minute, you got a crown on, you got to go for a walk, you got to drink some water, not because you want to, but because you're worth it. And when I realize I have a crown on, what happens is I look around. They notice everyone has a crown on.

Speaker 2: 3:37

We start to value ourself and other people differently, but the being sweet on the inside was literally the powerful part of the pineapple principle that became please be a pineapple person. Is we live in a world where I can sit at home, jennifer, and I can say I don't like your hair, I'm going to unfriend you, I'm going to disconnect you, I'm going to say something mean to you that we use our keyboard or our phone as a weapon to to discount someone, to dissolve a relationship or to say something negative and not care about emotionally. So when I start thinking about people being sweet on the inside. They use their mouth and their keyboard and their phone to encourage people, love people and spread sweetness, and so that's my.

Speaker 2: 4:13

My vision is that people will say I will see value and be sweet and someone else will say I'll do that, and so I have these wristbands that I made that are the pineapple people wristbands, and they're saying I am committed to looking up, putting my phone aside, I'm committed to valuing myself and others end up being sweet, encouraging, loving, kind. So that's that's what a pineapple person is.

Speaker 1: 4:32

I love it. You've probably heard the saying. You know I don't remember exactly how it goes, but you're willing to fix someone else's crown Right and that's so important. That goes back to the sweetness part.

Speaker 2: 4:46

That's right 100%, and you usually always find me wearing a pineapple or this. So people ask and then you can say how are you valuing yourself? So I love. I kind of forgot about the. You know, sometimes our crown gets crooked or falls off completely. Get our crown back on Right. Remember to value ourselves.

Speaker 1: 5:04

That's beautiful. So you wrote a book on this whole concept. Yeah, that is so phenomenal.

Speaker 2: 5:10

Let me see if I have that book. I do.

Speaker 1: 5:12

It's very, very cool A pineapple principle.

Speaker 2: 5:15

There it is, so it's just like a simple symbol with the significant message. So just little easy to read, you know, easy to remember.

Speaker 1: 5:24

But easy easy to digest too. I can do it in one or two sittings and it's something that will stick with me, yeah, and that you know is important. How has that changed your life? Writing that book or coming across that whole principle?

Speaker 2: 5:40

It's been an amazing change. And actually, when you were saying how, when we talked in the past and we talked about how do you remember things? I'm such a visual learner so I loved the symbol of the pineapple right. So that was a big change. And what I also realized is it didn't matter if you were three or a hundred, you could learn it and you could remember it. And then when people saw pineapples, it would remind them oh my gosh, I want to be sweeter. Oh my gosh, I want to value myself and value others because of the crown on it. And so it's really changed my life in a lot of ways because of the pineapple principle book.

Speaker 2: 6:09

I have done college commencements. I've done high school commencements. People have said I love this. It's not 20 steps to remember. I just need to look up value, see myself, see others, value myself, value others, be sweet toward myself, be sweet toward like.

Speaker 2: 6:23

It's so simple. It's three things. It's three simple things of how we live our life at home and in the workplace and on the street, and in a busy, distracted world it's easy to forget. So I've ended up getting a pineapple onesie. I've been invited to speak in this pineapple onesie. I was in Vegas at a conference and they're like don't you have a onesie, can you bring that with us? I said yes, because it's so easy to remember Right, and in a busy, noisy world it's easy to forget. So to just be like will you be a pineapple? What does that mean? And you can quickly tell people what it means.

Speaker 2: 6:55

In the book I go into depth of what happened when I started intentionally living out a pineapple person life and I met a woman in the bathroom that was 36 and I looked up and saw her and I was kind to her and by the end of the day she approached me again and it's a long story so I won't go into the whole thing, but she's crying and I said what's going on? And she said you don't understand. I said tell me. She said I'm 36 years old and you're the first woman to ever look at me and not judge me and not make me feel less than and that's what I want to teach people is it doesn't cost a penny, it doesn't take very just a moment to make someone feel seen in a world where so many feel invisible.

Speaker 1: 7:38

It's that smile. That's right. You could make somebody's day. You could talk them off of a ledge that's from where they're at that day by just using your smile. Yeah, that's very important. Is your closet overflowing? Or maybe your kids closets are as well? Or maybe you just want to redecorate your house. If you're wondering what to do with all that stuff that you've accumulated, bring it all to true fashionistas, or even ship it to them for free, and they'll sell your unwanted items for you. They take away all the hassle by doing all the work, and all you have to do is sit back and collect your money. You can reach out to them online at true fashionistascom. Come into the store or check them out on Facebook or Instagram and that's true fashionistascom. All right, friends, we are back in studio with Annie Meehan and we are talking about the pineapple people, the pineapple principle, which is a book that Annie has written, along with seven others total of eight books. Your newest book. When did your newest book come out?

Speaker 2: 8:39

It came out in August and it's called Choose to Soar. It's inspired by the hurricane that hit Fort Myers Beach, where we had just moved 11 months earlier, but it's about disruption in business and life and so forth and how to allow yourself, not allow disruption to define you, but to soar above the circumstances you face.

Speaker 1: 8:57

So that's my Wow. That is a wonderful topic. Yeah, it's awesome. I'll show you since this is my newest Awesome, I love it. I love it. Okay so, pineapple people, you said you came about it, big guy I. What was the whole origin story? Yeah, so this.

Speaker 2: 9:17

Yeah, how it started is a friend of mine was visiting from Chicago when I lived in Minnesota and I used to always wear orange because orange is the color of happiness. I was telling pink is a color of friendly, I love your pink and I used to always wear orange because it's color of happiness. And she was in town visiting and she found a skirt she's like get to the store. I came racing over and it was orange but it was covered with pineapples and I said I don't get the pineapple. And she said you're such a pineapple person, annie. She said you see people, you value people and you are sweet to people. People feel loved in your presence.

Speaker 2: 9:48

And I had never heard the poem before that. She was a preschool teacher, so she taught me the poem. But one of my big beliefs, jennifer's, we all have a story behind our story. We have a story behind our smile. We have a story. And so I was like that's a cute poem. I want to dig into it and I bet there's some lessons here behind this poem that I can teach other people. And that's how Pineapple principle became to be, because she called me a pineapple.

Speaker 2: 10:09

I learned the poem and I thought what does it look like to stand up straight? What does it feel like to value yourself? What does it look like to be sweet? And so that's how I started to pay attention and the stories unfolded at different conferences I spoke at, and people were like, oh my gosh, I haven't been valuing myself and as a result of not valuing myself, I mean to my team, I mean to my kids, I mean to my spouse I'm giving everyone the leftovers because I'm bitter about my life. And so these symbols that were simple, see value and be sweet became much deeper, and so stories came from it.

Speaker 1: 10:42

And I love how simple it is. It's just very clear-cut. So with that, with it being such a simple message, how can we take that and apply that to our everyday life and live like a pineapple person? What, what things can we do to live like that every day?

Speaker 2: 10:58

tangible, what tangible. I'm gonna put your phone away. Put your phone away in our phone addicted world where we are, we literally ride on a plane. People have headphones in. They got their phone I and I talked to people, even if I can't hear me.

Speaker 1: 11:12

I'm like oh.

Speaker 2: 11:13

I make friends on planes and people like nobody talks to people anymore. I'm like I can't imagine being single today and you could bump into someone in the hallway and at work or at the grocery store and you could make a friend or go on a date. And I think it's very lonely for that reason, as much as we are in control of our headphones and our phone, take the head, take the earplugs out and make your phone off. I go to restaurants all the time and people have those in even when I. It's so lonely, it's so isolated, so tangibly.

Speaker 1: 11:40

Do you know? I just have to. I Remember the image I don't remember what it was painting or whatever. It was a husband and wife sitting across the table from each other and they were both like this, looking at the paper. You remember what I'm talking about, like they were together but they were alone because they didn't really get along. So they read the paper. It's like this now, right, like you're on the phone, sitting at the table with your spouse, like you said, going out to dinner, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 12:09

And, and I think when relationship ends, whether it's friendships or significant others, it first unplugged, then it plugs in other things. So a lot of people want to blame all the outside. I'm like no, first we put the phone first, we put the job first, we put the friend, whoever Significant, outside of. So, first thing, take that, take those things out of your ears and put your phone down first. The second thing is don't ask yourself when you get up, do I want to do it? Ask yourself, am I worth doing it? And that really changed something for me inside my head. Because if I ask myself, do I want to eat healthy, do I want to exercise? Don't the answers usually no.

Speaker 2: 12:42

I love donuts, I like laying around eating donuts, watching sappy movies. But when I say, am I worth doing it, it changed. And then I started to get motivation on myself of, oh, I'm worth drinking water, I'm worth going for a walk, and I'm not saying never have that stuff, I'm just saying am I worth it? But when you think like that, what you start to do is value all people as equal. So I really try when I'm speaking at a big company to not know who the CEO is. I don't really want to. I don't care if you're entry level or the biggest title. You are equally valuable to me as a human being, and so I'm going to value himself and others right. So we remove labels and we ask ourselves not do I want to, but am I worth it? And the sweetness for me is can you send a text, an email, a Facebook message, whatever it is, every day to at least one person, sometimes many, that just encourage?

Speaker 2: 13:31

you to do it, amen. Yes, I love that I have so many friends going through so many things right now, bearing people they love, dealing with diseases, hurting, exhausted, broke, and people need encouragement. We need encouragement, and so why not be that one to do it, and not with no expectation of a return, just like what can I give? Who can I pour into today?

Speaker 1: 13:57

Right, and you know, somebody had said to me a long time ago that goes back this whole thing text one person a day in your contacts just to say hi, and I used to do that. And then you know what happened. Life got busy and then you're so exhausted by the end of the day you sit down on your couch and you fall asleep.

Speaker 2: 14:18

Right.

Speaker 1: 14:20

That's a true story. It's the honest to good of truth. But you don't know. Again, it goes back to that one smile Can make or break someone's day and so can that one hi, that one text, that one. I see you Like the story you shared of the woman that saw you in the bathroom. No one's ever actually seen me.

Speaker 2: 14:43

That's powerful, hugely so my also when you asked me what happened with the pineapple. So I had applied for about 10 TEDx talks or five TEDx talks and never gotten really response or anyone interested. And a man on LinkedIn reached out to me and he goes I love what you're talking about, about pineapple thing, tell me more about that. So I told him and then he asked a few more questions. I was like it's only $10 for a book If you want one. And he goes no, I want you to do a TED talk. This is powerful.

Speaker 2: 15:08

So my TED talk, which wasn't necessarily titled great but it's powerful, is called Lessons from a Pineapple and I tell the whole story in 15 minutes of what has happened. Because of this pineapple message and because of truly embracing, I will be a pineapple person and I will invite a million other people to join me and it's very emotional and it's about being invisible as a child, feeling invisible and sometimes wanting to be invisible due to violence, but ultimately knowing that the value of seeing another human and valuing them and being sweet to them is life changing, not only for me but for all the people that I get it in counter. So it's been a very powerful message that has been very well received about and simple be a pineapple. How hard is that? I can be a pineapple. What does that mean? Tell me more on whether you're a kid or an adult or young adult or a senior. I want to be a pineapple. I'm crabby. I don't want to be crabby anymore. Awesome, I can do it.

Speaker 1: 16:01

I guess it's a lot of questions and a lot of what's that. I did that. I'm like it's a really it's a big talking point Like what is it? It's an icebreaker. Yes, you know it's very cool. I love the whole premise around it. It's all very, very cool and if any of our listeners want to purchase your books, are they available?

Speaker 2: 16:23

anywhere. They are on Amazon and on my website, but on Amazon all of my books are paperback and Kindle and might be the exception. The second book that won the national award is also Audible read by me. So, yeah, sometimes they'll make you sad, but they'll leave you high.

Speaker 1: 16:39

I love it. I love it. So, Annie, it has been an absolute pleasure having you on today. If our listeners would like to get ahold of you, I know you said you love LinkedIn. Where else can they find you?

Speaker 2: 16:52

Annie me and hopefully, if you Google it you're going to find me. But YouTube pretty active on YouTube and LinkedIn are kind of my two main. I do have a website, of course, in Facebook, but LinkedIn and YouTube are the places to find me on a regular basis.

Speaker 1: 17:05

Fabulous, and thank you again so much for spending your time with us.